Conclusions Wrong on Faith-Based Plan

To the Editor:

John P. Bartkowski’s opinion piece, “Small Religious Groups Face Tough Time Getting Aid” (September 6), deals with one of the more hotly debated social-policy issues — whether and how faith-based groups should be involved in providing human services. Like Professor Bartkowski, I have conducted research in this area, and I am also convinced that there is a role for faith-based organizations in the service-delivery system.

However, I wish that Professor Bartkowski had the opportunity, before he penned his analysis, to consider and reply to the reservations expressed about the recent White House report on faith-based access to funding that appeared in that same issue of The Chronicle. He repeats the report’s claim that there is no proof that the present distribution of funding to nonprofits yields demonstrable results. As the person responsible for all of our schools’ rather extensive external funding, I can recall few, if any, grants in recent years that did not demand concrete, measurable outcomes.

If additional standards are needed, they would more easily be developed among recipients with a history of service provision, where variables such as agency structure, fiscal and program management, and relationships with other providers are easier to identify and measure than would be the case with new, unproven providers. Professor Bartkowski’s implicit assumption that congregations that have little or no expertise will do a better job is untenable. I would be especially concerned about the part-time pastor he mentions who is too busy to attend meetings and how that pastor would deal with the demands, on all recipients, to prove their effectiveness, nevermind assuring that they do not overstep constitutional boundaries between church and state.

Professor Bartkowski talks about what he calls “the official list” of “well-connected” faith-based groups. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. But the professor also indirectly points to some ways in which these groups may begin efforts to get on the “list” — among others: board development; making the right institutional and social connections; and learning the bureaucratic rules.

As far as fear about not being able to proselytize, these fears are real and justified. It is here, more than in any area of the debate on this complicated issue, that the constitutional prohibitions are the most clear.

Missing from this and much of what is written about this White House initiative is the fact that small, nonsectarian, community-based organizations are supposed to receive equal attention as their religious brethren. That they are not is telling, despite the fact that community-based organizations are more likely to represent the diversity of, at least, what is a physical community than sectarian groups.

Among the contributions faith-based organizations could make to helping people in need, one is particularly appropriate for them and critical to a well-functioning helping system. That is, filling the inevitable gaps in a system that is evolving from what it was for half a century to a new form whose eventual shape cannot be yet discerned.

Because of their size and nonbureaucratic and altruistic nature, congregations and small community-based organizations have the flexibility to respond more quickly to fill these gaps than larger agencies. If at the same time, they document what they are doing, they will provide invaluable input for policies and programs that will make for a less fragmented and more responsive system.

What works best should be the guiding principle for funding, not whether applicants are faith-based or not, but the latter must find and be helped to find a place in that system that maximizes their effectiveness and accountability.

John Cosgrove
Associate Dean
Graduate School of Social Service
Fordham University
New York